Baghdad Says It’s Ending ‘War of Cities’ : But More Missiles Are Fired at Tehran as Truce Deadline Nears

The Iraqi regime announced Thursday that it is ending the “war of the cities,” but it continued missile attacks on Tehran today as its cease-fire deadline approached.

After firing two missiles into the Iranian capital Thursday, the Iraqi government, in a statement read over Baghdad Radio, said the halt in its missile bombardment of Iranian cities will begin today and last as long as Iran refrains from attacking Iraqi cities.

Then Tehran Radio quoted Iranian officials as saying that Iran had stopped attacking Iraqi cities and would mount no further attacks provided that Iraq did likewise.

But later Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency reported that two Iranian missiles were launched against targets in Baghdad. The official Iraqi news agency reported that Iraq retaliated with its third missile attack of the day on Tehran.

Two more Iraqi missiles hit Tehran this morning, the Iranian news agency reported.

Since the attacks on civilian centers were resumed Feb. 27, Iraq has fired 59 ground-to-ground missiles at targets in Iran, most of them hitting Tehran, Esfahan and Qom, a religious center southeast of the Iranian capital. Iran has reported firing 32 missiles at Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul.

The Iraqi statement put a number of conditions on the offer of a truce, notably insisting in effect that Baghdad have the last word in the exchange of missiles.

“As Iran was the party that initiated the war of the cities, the last bombardment operation will be by Iraq before it implements the halt,” the statement said. “If Iran bombards Iraqi cities--with missiles, planes or artillery--in retaliation for this operation, we will continue the bombardment and teach Tehran rulers appropriate lessons.”

According to diplomatic reports here, the Iraqi attacks, the first use of missiles against Tehran since the war began in 1980, have caused considerable upheaval in the Iranian capital. A million or more people have fled. The Iranian attacks on Baghdad have been less frequent and have avoided the capital’s center, causing only minor displacement.

Iraqi officials called in the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council--the United States, Britain, France, China and the Soviet Union--to announce Baghdad’s decision, which was made, according to the spokesman, at a joint meeting of the policy-making Revolutionary Command Council and the leadership of the ruling Baath Socialist Party.

The move was considered significant because the United States, Britain and France had been pressing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to suspend the missile attacks on Tehran in light of the progress being made at the United Nations toward imposing an arms embargo against Iran.

After adoption of Security Council Resolution 598 last July, Iraq agreed to a U.N. order for a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq War, now in its eighth year. Iran refused to comply, although it continued to observe an unofficial cease-fire. Iraq then said this was unacceptable and resumed its attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf.

The United States has marshaled the support of all the permanent Security Council members except the Soviet Union for an arms embargo against Iran aimed at forcing the Tehran regime to comply with the call for a cease-fire.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who visited the Soviet Union three weeks ago, was reportedly given assurances by Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze that the Soviets would go along with the arms embargo.

But the Soviets apparently remain loath to offend the Iranians, and after resumption of the war of the cities, the Soviets introduced a resolution calling for an end to the bombardment of civilian targets.

Iran, which has complained to the Soviets about their supplying Iraq with the missiles used to attack Iranian cities, expressed satisfaction with the Soviets’ U.N. proposal. But Western nations see the Soviet move as a delaying tactic to avoid taking a stand on the question of an arms embargo.

“The Iraqis have been under pressure from a lot of people to stop,” a Western diplomat here said. “But they feel they won a round in the war. Maybe one of the Iraqi reasons was to undercut the Soviet effort at the United Nations.”

The Soviets disclosed this week that they had provided Iraq with a number of missiles but emphasized that those weapons had lacked the range to reach Tehran from Iraqi territory.

Western military analysts have speculated that the Iraqis have altered the Soviet missiles, believed to be the Scud-B type that Iran has used against Iraqi cities, by adding a booster and reducing the weight of the warhead in order to increase the range.

Iraq has maintained that the missiles are produced by its own munitions industry.

The war of the cities began in 1985 when it became clear that neither side was capable of achieving a decisive military victory on the ground. It was suspended a year ago in January.

It was resumed Feb. 27 when Iraqi bombers attacked a refinery about eight miles from Tehran. The raid severely damaged the refinery at a time when Iran was having difficulty supplying its people with heating and cooking oil, a difficulty that still exists.

On Feb. 29, Iran responded by attacking Baghdad with missiles. Iraq, which apparently had been preparing a counterstrike for some time, then rained 11 missiles onto Tehran in a single day.

The missiles were apparently targeted on Ferdozi Square in central Tehran, where many embassies are situated. According to diplomats in Tehran, the area is also the site of a bomb shelter used by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader.

Several embassies were hit or damaged by flying debris, businessmen fled the country and a number of foreign airlines canceled service to Tehran.

Diplomats said that a large percentage of Tehran’s population began fleeing the city every night, sleeping in their cars, to avoid the danger of incoming missiles.

Diplomats said the Iraqis undertook the campaign for a number of reasons, including concern that the Persian Gulf War had lost its prominence in Western eyes, diminishing the chances of their seeking a solution to it.

It was also suggested that the Iraqis wanted to intensify the conflict in order to drive home to their people that the country is on a war footing and could not relax its vigilance.